Abducted (20 page)

IT WAS 9 A.M.,
and Andi had left for a meeting with her union rep over her suspension. Carly was tired but happy that she and Andi had mended their relationship, and she didn’t want to go back to bed. She had decided on a swim when her phone buzzed with a text from Alex:
Need your help.

As she started to respond, she realized that Alex had not been around any of the chaos she was pulled from bed for the morning before. Maybe he’d sleep through a fire, but if nothing else, the 998 should have gotten him up. As a spark of worry grew, she typed back,
Where are you?

Home. Come here.

On my way.

She’d just put the phone down to take a quick shower when it buzzed again. This time it was Nick calling.

“Glad you’re up. I thought I’d come by and take you to breakfast. We can take Maddie to the dog beach after.”

She told him about Alex’s text.

“Ohhh, I guess food can wait. I’ll come get you—we’ll go together.”

Fifteen minutes later, Carly climbed into the plain car Nick was now driving. She noticed he’d come prepared again. “Glad you don’t think I’m overreacting,” she said.

“No, you’re right. Alex has been all over this from the start. For him to not show up yesterday is odd.” He waited a beat, then continued. “After all, he considers you a rock star.”

“Ha. You jealous?”

Nick gave her a warm smile. “What? Because he seems to have totally forgotten that I was out there in Riverside too? Nah.”

Carly chuckled. As they turned the corner onto Alex’s street, Carly saw the black Town Car parked in front of his house. And two men were getting in it.

“Nick.”

“I see them,” Nick said as he slowed the car.

Carly grabbed the car radio and gave dispatch the information. She was about to read the plate when the car’s horn sounded and it started rolling forward.

“He’s going to split,” Nick said, punching the accelerator.

The car burned rubber and took off down the street.

“We have to check Alex,” Carly said, and Nick took his foot off the gas.

Just then a man ran out of Alex’s house and across the yard in the direction the black car had gone.

Nick punched it and pulled the wheel to the right to cut in front of the man on the sidewalk. The man slammed into the front fender and rolled over the hood.

Carly’s door was partway open as Nick threw the car into park. Both of them leaped out at the same time.

By the time Carly rounded the front of the car, Nick had one of the man’s arms. She jumped in and grabbed the other. Together they lifted the cursing man from the ground and bent him over the hood of the plain car. Nick gripped his wrist in a tight control hold. Carly finally heard the sirens of responding officers.

Nick turned to her. “I’ve got him. Go check Alex.”

Carly paused only long enough to grab her backpack from the front seat. Jogging to Alex’s door, she pulled her handgun from the pack and held it at the ready when she reached the porch.

The door was open. From the steps she called out, “Alex?”

Fear blossomed in her gut. Sperry was desperate enough to burn down his own apartment building. What would he do to Alex?

Sucking in a breath, she stepped cautiously over the threshold about the same time the sirens came to a stop and she knew backup was there.

“In here.”

As she turned toward the living room, her breath whooshed out with relief. Alex was on the floor, one elbow on a chair while the other hand held a cloth over his face, and he was okay.

“What were they after?”

Alex gave a weak shake of his head. “They pushed their way in right after I texted you. Talk about déjà vu—I thought I’d be safe from intrusions like this with Drake and Tucker in jail.”

Just then Nick came rushing in. “Do you need medics, Alex?”

“No. I think I’ll live, though I probably need a dentist. I think I’ll lose a tooth or two.” He dropped the cloth from his face and Carly saw that he’d been smacked around. When he started to get up, Carly and Nick stepped forward to help him. “First a shotgun in the face and now a beating in my own living room.”

“The uniforms have the guy. Looks like Boxer, one of the three who work for Sperry, but he won’t say why he’s here. And he wants his lawyer.”

“Three guesses who his lawyer is,” Carly said in a huff.

“Cynical today, aren’t you?” Alex said with a lopsided grin.

“I’m that and more. What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain. Help me into the kitchen.”

Once he was seated in the kitchen, Carly found a plastic bag and put together an ice pack.

“What did they want from you?” Carly asked once Trejo had the ice on his face and they were all seated at the table.

He ran a hand over his puffy face, new bruises forming over old ones, and wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I’ll tell you about them in a minute, but first I’d better tell you what happened last night. You aren’t going to be happy with me, but I saw Mary Ellen.”

“What?”

“She came here. She got my address from the registration in the glove box, and she came to give me my car back and apologize for taking it—and to ask for my help.”

“Alex! Why didn’t you call? She’s wanted for kidnapping, for heaven’s sake—”

“She’s a scared kid. She was babbling about a fire and a threat and barely getting away. What would you have done?”

“I would have called the police! We need to get to the bottom of this. We can keep her safe.”

He sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have done that, but I wanted to find out what was going on, and I thought I could do a better job getting information from her than the cops could.” He shrugged and then winced. “The girl is street smart maybe, and definitely a survivor, but at the core she’s still a kid. You said yourself that you didn’t think she planned and executed the kidnapping on her own.”

“I still want her in custody so we can get some answers! For two cents I’d arrest you for aiding and abetting. She gave you your car back?”

“Yeah, it’s in the garage. She said she’s sorry; she feels responsible for Harper’s death, says it was her fault he got arrested. He was the only person she knew she could trust. As far as the baby goes, she did her best to take care of him. She said she’s only one step ahead of Sperry. That unless she gives him back what she took, he’ll kill her.”

“He’ll probably kill her anyway if he has the chance. Did she tell you what she has that he wants?”

He looked away.

“Alex, did she say what she took that belongs to him?”

He sighed. “I hate being a snitch. But yeah, she did say she took something out of his safe. Apparently she had keys that Harper took from Sperry. He had told her once there was something in the safe at the house in Riverside that she could use, something that would be insurance.”

“What?”

“I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

“You guys had a nice long conversation and you didn’t ask her what she took?”

“Look, Edwards, I thought about asking and I thought about calling you when she was at my house, but I knew she’d bolt. What was I supposed to do, tie her up? Anyway, I fed her and listened to her tell me what she wanted to tell me and I hoped to talk her into seeing you, but then the storm troopers came.”

“The storm troopers?”

“Yeah, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They came to my house and practically hauled me away in handcuffs for being a victim.”

“ICE? Why did they want to talk to you?” Carly wondered if that was why Wiley was so ready to dismiss Las Playas PD, because ICE was involved. Made sense because of the human trafficking aspect of Sperry’s crime.

Alex leaned back, his puffy lip causing him to speak with a sort of lisp. “She’d been here about an hour when two ICE agents knocked on my door and said they wanted to talk to me about what happened out in Riverside. Now, I don’t mind talking to them, but Mary Ellen was sitting in my kitchen. Call me paranoid, but I wasn’t going to tell them she was there. I tried to get rid of them, put them off until later. I guess they took my attitude as evasive, and next thing I knew they were asking me if I wanted to be arrested. So I poked my head in the kitchen and told her I would be right back, make yourself at home, that kind of thing. ICE kept me four hours, and when I got home, she was gone.”

“Four hours? What did they want to know?”

“Every minute detail I could remember about being in that cellar.” He moved the ice pack to a different spot on his face. “They wanted to know everything the illegals said, everything Grant said, and everything I saw and heard. I must have repeated the story twenty times before they decided they had it all and let me go.”

“And when you got home, Mary Ellen was gone.”

He nodded. “I waited, hoping she’d come back. But when I realized she wasn’t going to, I texted you to tell you what happened. Then there was a knock, and Boxer pushed his way in. He had a friend with him, a big guy with a gold tooth in the front.”

“Just the two of them?”

“Three of them came to the door. The third guy—” he put the ice on his eye—“Gold Tooth called him Casper. He must have been the driver because right after they grabbed me and had me restrained, Gold Tooth told him to go get the car ready. After I told them I couldn’t help them, I guess they weren’t sure what their next move would be. Gold Tooth left to call the boss and told Boxer to hang on a minute.” Alex moaned and again moved the ice pack around his face.

Carly scrubbed her cheeks with her hands and looked at Nick, who had been listening quietly.

“We have to tell Nelson,” he said to Alex. “You could be in trouble for not calling when Mary Ellen was here. For all you know, you might have saved yourself a beating.”

“I’m a big boy. I can take the consequences.”

“She didn’t give you any idea about where she’d been staying?”

“I got the impression it wasn’t in one place. I asked her about relatives or friends and she just shrugged.”

“How is she getting around without your car?”

“I don’t know. I told her to go to you; I said she could trust you—after all, she left the baby with you.”

Carly’s hands flew to her hips. “Yeah, by the way, how’d she get my address?”

“I have GPS in my car. Your address is on it.” He hiked his shoulder sheepishly.

Carly just shook her head.

“Did Sperry’s goons know Mary Ellen had been here?” Nick asked.

Trejo frowned and then winced. “They acted like they did. I mean, they kept asking me for some package she left me, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Well, I got the impression they were bluffing.”

“They weren’t bluffing on your face.”

“I know, but it seemed like they were trying to find out how much I knew about the girl. The car was in the garage; they didn’t know she’d brought it back.” He looked from Nick to Carly. “They might be shooting in the dark, trying to find out anything they can. They might visit you next.” He pointed at Carly.

Carly glanced at Nick, and she knew from the expression on his face that he was thinking the same thing she was. He spoke it out loud.

“Or they may visit Jonah.”

“WHO’S JONAH?”
Alex asked Carly as Nick pulled out his cell phone to call the station. One of the officers who had responded to their radio call had come into the house, and Carly asked him to do the paperwork to recover Alex’s car.

“They may need to take your car to have it processed,” she explained. “It will be up to Nelson.”

Alex waved his right hand; his left was tenderly testing one of his front teeth. “Who is Jonah?” he repeated.

“He’s the pastor of our church, and he’s also Mary Ellen’s uncle.”

“Uncle? She has an uncle you know? You’ve been holding out on me!”

“Not intentionally. I just never got around to telling you. Besides, it’s a long story. He hasn’t seen her in ten years.”

Alex sighed. “Then she probably doesn’t even remember him.”

Nick finished his phone call. “Alex, you need to stay here. Nelson and Harris are on the way over. They need to talk to you and check out the car. And a unit found the black Town Car—it was abandoned about a mile away.”

“No sign of the occupants?”

“Nope, that car was burned. We had the plate, and everyone knew what to look for. It’s a rental anyway, so it makes sense for the goons to hop to another set of wheels.”

“If I’m staying, that means you’re leaving,” Alex said.

“We’re going to see Jonah. I tried calling but didn’t get an answer. Since it’s lunchtime, everyone might be out, but I want to be certain.” He started for the door and waved for Carly to follow.

“Sounds like the story is where you’re going.”

“Sorry, Alex, but you need to wait here and face the music.” Carly smiled grimly and followed Nick out to the plain car.

• • •

“On the phone Nelson told me that ICE plans to set up on the church,” Nick said as he put the car in drive and made a U-turn. “They could be there shortly. They think Sperry might want to talk to Jonah. There might be more going on than we know for ICE to be so aggressive. I’m surprised they jumped Alex like they did.”

“Sperry took a chance sending those three here to rough Alex up.”

“And at least partially failed because we have another one of his employees in custody. But it tells me there’s an urgency in his search for Mary Ellen.”

Something in his voice made her turn and study his profile. “You’re worried because Jonah didn’t answer.”

Nick nodded. “Someone should be there; someone should have answered the phone.”

“We’ll be there in a minute.” She reached over and squeezed one of his hands on the steering wheel.

Though the ride was over quickly, Carly found herself worrying as they pulled into an almost-empty church lot. She figured at the very least, the construction workers should be there. One of the buildings adjacent to the sanctuary was being remodeled into a coffee shop, bookstore, and fellowship hall.

“Do you want to call for a unit?”

Nick hesitated. “No, he might be in the prayer room. He wouldn’t answer the phone if he was there. Let’s check that first.”

They got out of the car, and Carly slung her backpack over her shoulder. Together they walked toward the sanctuary. They reached the door as Veronica came out.

“Veronica, where is everyone?” Nick asked.

“Jonah canceled construction today. He’s been in prayer all morning.” Her face took on a pained expression. “He’s fasting for his niece. You’re not here for prayer?”

“Not exactly,” Carly said. “We wanted to talk to Jonah.”

“You’ll find him in the prayer room. I’m on my way to pick up some supplies. I’ll be back in a few.”

They thanked Veronica, then headed down the sanctuary aisle to the small room at the left of the stage and found Jonah inside. He looked as though he hadn’t slept.

He brightened when he saw them. “News?”

“No. Sorry, Jonah,” Nick said. “We still haven’t found her, but we have heard from her.”

Carly told him about Mary Ellen’s visit to Alex.

The pastor looked deflated. “She returned the car and disappeared? I’ve been here all night, praying for her life, her soul . . .”

Carly reached out and touched his arm. “I thank God she brought the baby back. And I know we’ll find her. We came here to warn you.” She told him about the apartment fire and Alex’s beating. Jonah paled but said nothing. Carly didn’t sugarcoat anything. She was certain they needed to find Mary Ellen, and she was also certain Jonah needed to know exactly how dangerous Sperry was in case he did show up at church.

“Thank you both,” Jonah said when she finished. “I appreciate it. This is a scary situation—the worst is not knowing. But I agree with you: prayer was answered with the return of the baby. And I’m glad my trust is in an all-knowing God.”

“Amen,” Nick said. “ICE will be watching the church later. Someone will probably contact you.”

“What will you two be doing?”

Nick looked at Carly, and she shrugged. “Officially we’re off, but . . .”

“She means that we’ll probably be looking for Mary Ellen on our own time.”

“I appreciate that. Why don’t the three of us pray so this day continues on the right note,” Jonah suggested.

They each knelt, and Pastor Rawlings led them in a heartfelt prayer for Mary Ellen and the safety of all law enforcement personnel.

• • •

They left Jonah in the prayer room and walked slowly back through the sanctuary. Carly found she had more respect for Jonah than before. He’d made a hard, shocking choice to let go of Mary Ellen ten years ago, revealing a lack of faith that made him more real, more human in her eyes.
We’re all faithless at times,
she thought, glancing at Nick and thinking of their issues,
but the bottom line is that God is always faithful.

Nick was quiet, but he reached over and grabbed her hand as they walked between the rows of empty seats. Preoccupied, she heard a noise in the lobby and assumed it was Veronica.

It registered too late that Veronica probably wasn’t back yet. Nick had just put his hand on the door to pull it open when someone on the other side shoved it with force. The door smacked Nick in the face, wrenching his hand out of hers. He went down hard.

“Nick!” Carly was thrown off-balance, and before she regained it, she was seized from behind and held in a viselike grip.